Ignorance is Bliss!!!

The other day I saw a documentary on Discovery about India. I watch Discovery; but only when they don't show India. I somehow feel the Discovery guys firmly believe that we still charm the snakes and use elephants to commute. Even if someone tells them that India has advanced; they would surely feel our elephants now have side indicators which blinks when it takes a turn.

Discovery seems to have a background score associated with each country. For India it is the Sitar punctuated with Tabla. Do they really believe we play only that?? Sorry sorry... they don't... they actually think we can also play the flute. Mr. Rahman, after you finish reading this, please compose some new numbers, especially for the Discovery(India) shows.

They somehow come to know that we are good in IT, and then there is no stopping them to show how the new IT generation earns more than their parents' retirement salary. They also don't miss to point out that this salary that Indian IT generation earns is at least ten times less than their counterpart in the west. This is to show the gap between us and them. To prove their point they head to the Destination 'IT' or in other words 'Infosys Technologies' in Bangalore. Sitting with half a dozen Infoscions, the host of the show, who happens to be of Indian origin, starts his questions in his weird accent. Probably he has tailored his western accent specially for his Indian guests. The questions are framed tactfully to elicit answers like "...now I can buy the refrigerator which my Mom always wanted" or "I get respect in the society, they look up to me", and so on... In between the Q and A session the camera wanders across different places; right from the Burgers and Pastas in Infoscions' plates to the 'Sunil Tea Shop' outside Infy on Hosur road; from the architecturally innovative Infosys buildings to the slum-like areas in Electronic City. Infosys caterers do serve Indian food, and a variety of it. I cant call it good but it is definitely better than the burger. Probably forcing the Infoscions in the frame to eat western food suits him to bring out the contrast better.

Our host then moves to Pune, asking about the 123 agreement to the locals. I still couldn't figure out why, but he does. Probably to test their knowledge.. or rather the lack of it. But the locals being from the land of the great Maratha's, refuse to bow down. To the credit of Puneits, they knew that the 123 has something to do with nuclear technology and thanks to the 1998 Pokhran tests, the word 'nuclear' is directly related to bombs. With this kind of correlations the answers were obvious, like some Patil said, "There are a lot of anti social individuals moving freely in the country. What if one of them gets hold of this nuclear technology and creates atomic bombs out of it? India should not sign 123 agreement". Our host is happy. He has completed his assignment. He starts his conclusion about his journey in India and concludes it with a statement:
"Ignorance is Bliss!!!"